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When did Intercity stop using Mk1s?


QuoitsPlayer
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Hi everyone, with the exception of the 'Special Trains' unit when did Intercity stop using Mk1s?

 

I can't remember seeing any in Cross-country rakes by the mid 90s (I was 14 when Virgin took over) , but when would the last of the Mk1s have left Intercity service please? (Particularly on services travelling on the Yorks/North East section of the ECML).

 

Many thanks,  Matt

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34 minutes ago, QuoitsPlayer said:

Hi everyone, with the exception of the 'Special Trains' unit when did Intercity stop using Mk1s?

 

I can't remember seeing any in Cross-country rakes by the mid 90s (I was 14 when Virgin took over) , but when would the last of the Mk1s have left Intercity service please? (Particularly on services travelling on the Yorks/North East section of the ECML).

 

Many thanks,  Matt

I travelled down to Exeter (Salisbury to Exeter Central) in late winter 1992 for my uni interview. I was loco-hauled by 33s in both directions. I have an impression I was riding in Mark I coaches? I was in a 2nd class compartment, it was cold and the heating couldn't really keep up? By the time I started my degree (October 1992) Class 158 DMUs had taken over this route - better heating, but less character!

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4 minutes ago, Paul H Vigor said:

I travelled down to Exeter (Salisbury to Exeter Central) in late winter 1992 for my uni interview. I was loco-hauled by 33s in both directions. I have an impression I was riding in Mark I coaches? I was in a 2nd class compartment, it was cold and the heating couldn't really keep up? By the time I started my degree (October 1992) Class 158 DMUs had taken over this route - better heating, but less character!

 

Salisbury to Exeter was a Network SouthEast operation!

 

In fact seeing as the route had been downgraded in the 60s to a secondary route it NEVER had any scheduled Intercity services (apart from Yeovil - Exeter diversions away from Taunton for engineering work).

Edited by phil-b259
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8 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Salisbury to Exeter was a Network SouthEast operation!

 

In fact seeing as the route had been downgraded in the 60s to a secondary route it NEVER had any scheduled Intercity services (apart from Yeovil - Exeter diversions away from Taunton for engineering work).

I don't think I claimed to have travelled on an Intercity service. I was commenting on what may have been my last experience of Mark I coaches on 'the Big Railway'.

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12 minutes ago, Paul H Vigor said:

I don't think I claimed to have travelled on an Intercity service. I was commenting on what may have been my last experience of Mark I coaches on 'the Big Railway'.

 

The original poster who started this thread was quite clear....

 

1 hour ago, QuoitsPlayer said:

with the exception of the 'Special Trains' unit when did Intercity stop using Mk1s?

 

 

As Salisbury - Exeter was not an Intercity operation at any point whatever stock you have may have travelled on is not relevant to the question asked and has the potential to confuse. Hence my post.

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23 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

The original poster who started this thread was quite clear....

 

 

As Salisbury - Exeter was not an Intercity operation at any point whatever stock you have may have travelled on is not relevant to the question asked and has the potential to confuse. Hence my post.

Life is too short.

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I think in terms of passenger seating carriages, as opposed to catering vehicles, the last in InterCity use would likely have been late the 1980's, probably on the NE-SW corridor. Being pedantic, mk BG's (luggage vans) survived in InterCity use until about 1988-9 on the WCML. Many received IC livery. Don't think Trans Pennine was ever an IC sector operation, that had some mk1's until the mid 80's.

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18 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

The original poster who started this thread was quite clear....

A tip to get the best out of RMWeb: when asking a question, it is helpful to already know the answer, that way you can easily ignore all the irrelevant, incorrect and contradictory ones :)

Edited by Hal Nail
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Agreed, and I travelled on a Paddington - Bristol TM service formed of one of those NSE sets (and a 50) in the late 1980s. 

 

For the last regular intercity use of Mk1s, there’s a significant date difference (10 years?) between normal seated carriages and others.

 

Reasonable numbers of BGs, GUVs (motorail) and catering cars lasted long enough for many to be painted in inter-city livery and at least two reached privatisation. 

 

Normal seated passenger carriages (not special trains fleet), there were very few non-air-conditioned vehicles (Mk1 or Mk2zabc) that lasted long enough to receive intercity livery. Indeed there were probably very few officially owned by the Intercity sector. 

 

The cascades resulting from the ECML electrification would have displaced many older carriages surviving at that date.

 

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Just throwing this out there, but were Mk1 FKs used any later for dedicated motorail workings? I remember seeing some branded with Intercity Motorail in Intercity livery so would have been some time after 1985, but have no idea when they would have finished

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The WCML Intercity train-sets in 1987 were all Mk2 or Mk3 based except for two.

One was the Motorail set, the other a rake of 9 vacuum brake Mk1s (8x TSO + BSK) which were part of the charter sets but was time-tabled for a run from Birmingham to Aberystwyth and then down to Euston on summer Saturdays. It was also available for relief work.

 

I've not found any images that date later than summer 1988. I'm guessing they were withdrawn when the carflats went. Any remaining Motorail trains used Mk2 or Mk3s with GUV.

Crewe - 1988 https://flic.kr/p/RVvNm4

Carlisle  - 1988 https://flic.kr/p/2ijL3nH

 

BR's Land Cruise trains used Mk1s into the 1990s (with white roof!), but I'd put them under the Speicial Trains category.

 

Intercity liveried BG, GUV and various buffet cars continued in normal use for many years.

 

Steven B.

 

Edited by Steven B
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A rake of 2nd-class INTERCITY Mk1s (inc. RMB) in January 1992 over on DaveF's thread:

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/85326-dave-fs-photos-ongoing-more-added-each-day/&do=findComment&comment=4659372

 

I wondered if this was the vac. braked rake mentioned above but it must be at least dual-braked due to the presence of the Mk2d BFK.

Still Special Trains maybe but not quite the full luxury, white-roofed FO/RBR rake.

 

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10 minutes ago, Padishar Creel said:

1992 beats my contribution, 1990 Stoke-on-Trent at 11m45

 

es grüßt pc

 

 

 

Excellent video,  the railway was far more interesting then . And far less overgrown 

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2 hours ago, keefer said:

A rake of 2nd-class INTERCITY Mk1s (inc. RMB) in January 1992 over on DaveF's thread:

 

I think I'm right in saying - I certainly remember being told it at the time - that a rake of MkIs were hurriedly put through Wolverton in the aftermath of Colwich (1986) as cover for the MkIIIs lost in that accident. I think they had a regular FO diagram and remember seeing them in regular service use during my time at NW coaching stock depots in the early 1990s. Mighty fine they looked too in full Intercity livery. Most of the TSOs were in the 50xx number series, being amongst the youngest  MkI vehicles - I'm sure some of them are still around.

 

8 hours ago, GordonC said:

Just throwing this out there, but were Mk1 FKs used any later for dedicated motorail workings?

Not sure if they were the ex-Motorail vehicles, but I clearly remember two such vehicles - 13225 and 13227 - being put through works by the Provincial sector and allocated to our depot. Mighty fine the looked two, gorgeous inside still with all wood veneer finish. One evening, one of the 1200 RFO vehicles in the XC LHCS sets was a 'knock out' and 13227 was offered to IC control as the closest possible replacement, an offer gratefully accepted (with a catering trolley hastily rustled up). It then spent the next two days running around in that set until another 1200 vehicle was made available.

 

Clearly a one-off but that would be about 1993 so I claim my £1:imsohappy:

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On 02/12/2021 at 22:11, QuoitsPlayer said:

Hi everyone, with the exception of the 'Special Trains' unit when did Intercity stop using Mk1s?

 

I can't remember seeing any in Cross-country rakes by the mid 90s (I was 14 when Virgin took over) , but when would the last of the Mk1s have left Intercity service please? (Particularly on services travelling on the Yorks/North East section of the ECML).

 

Many thanks,  Matt


The Mk2 coach was conceived as a modern version of the 1950s designed Mk1 employing integral construction techniques. The first Mk2 coaches produced were actually replacements for Mk1 orders. The first major influx was for WCML London/Birmingham/Stoke/ Crewe/Manchester/Liverpool services (all coaches except catering and full brake) (250 coaches?). Other major routes also obtained them later, and of course the HSTs on WR and ECML also replaced a lot of vehicles. Each new influx of coaches either caused withdrawal of time expired vehicles or cascade of others. 
 

The introduction of air conditioning on the new mk2, mk3 and mk4 fleets, introduced successively on core routes was another driver for cascading coaches - so eventually the mk1 fell off the bottom of the fleet eventually. Actually the earliest mk2s (FK) were withdrawn in the early 80s owing to asbestos contamination and their interior design replicating side corridor/first class of an earlier generation. 
 

The basic reason - life expiry and lack of features considered important to the service provided. 

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That makes sense. When we first moved to Reading in 1995, up to c. 2000, my wife was commuting to Oxford and the trains were still as I recall them from before 1992 - Mk 2 first, Mk 1 buffet, and four or so Mk 2 standards; possibly still with a Mk 1 BG or maybe a Mk 2 brake standard.

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